25 life-giving photos of little girls dressed as Wonder Woman

The new Wonder Woman film, starring Gal Gadot as a superhuman warrior who sets out to bring an end to World War I, generated huge amounts of buzz even before its official UK release date. In part, this is down to the film’s dazzling critical reception (it currently has a stellar 97% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes), but it’s also thanks to Wonder Woman’s status as the first female superhero to have her own dedicated comic book movie in over a decade.

Gadot is the first actress to lead a superhero film since 2005, when Elektra, a 12-rated flick starring Jennifer Garner, flopped at the box office. As a result, it’s likely that the vast majority of girls – particularly those who weren’t born, or who were under the age of 12, in 2005 – will never have seen a woman kick ass on screen, superhero-style.

And representation matters. The characters we see in the films, books and TV shows we consume have a huge influence on how we understand the world and our place in it, particularly when we’re young and (more) impressionable. To quote the great Geena Davis, who has dedicated her post-Thelma and LouiseHollywood career to increasing gender representation in film, “If she can be it, she can see it.”

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Moya Crockett

Moya is Women’s Editor at stylist.co.uk. As well as writing about inspiring women and feminism, she also covers subjects including careers, politics and psychology. Carrying a bottle of hot sauce on her person at all times is one of the many traits she shares with both Beyoncé and Hillary Clinton.